


Lavender Fields

by TheStoryMaker



Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Childhood, Gen, M/M, Memories, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 23:11:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1138577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStoryMaker/pseuds/TheStoryMaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carter remembers his childhood.  </p><p>(shift in AU towards the end with eventual Carter/Much)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lavender Fields

Carter loved the smell of lavender, it reminded him of home. In the small home where he’d grown up it had grown copious amounts behind their house and in the height of summer its scent would fill the air. On warm nights, he and his two brothers would sleep under the stars surrounded by the lilac bushes whose smell would help them drift into deep, satisfying sleep. His mother would pick the stems and set them in a jugs or pots of water to brighten up their home. On special celebrations, she would take small pieces of the flower and pin in to their lapels, dropping kisses to her husband’s lips as he placed a sprigs of it in her hair.

When his oldest brother married, it was through lavender bowers that he and his bride walked through. They’d left to find a new life for themselves, to find a place they could call home to raise a family. When Carter courted the young milkmaid Edith as a young man, he’d taken her for walks through the lavender field where they could hide among the tall flowers and talk or most of the time do things which would have made the elders blush and berate them. When Edith’s interests shifted to another, Carter would console himself hidden among the stems lest anyone saw his pain.

He and Thomas fought and tussled boyishly there; their father taught them how to fight, how to wield the sword, how to defend and when to attack among those flowers. There soft, willowy stems provided ample cushion for when they fell. It was there his father also taught them how to read and write, after long days of work in the armory making swords for the soldiers. Over the years he taught his sons how to make blades, to become sword-smiths like himself, capable of a trade to support themselves in their future years.

Thomas had yearned to go to war, to fight for his country. Carter had never had the taste for the fight as Thomas had, part of him couldn’t turn his back on his home and the last time he saw his brother was as they bid each other goodbye on the edges of fields tinged with purple. 

“Don’t forget me,” Carter had said with a grin, giving his brother a playful punch on the arm.

“I’ll write,” Thomas promised him, eagerly ready for the adventure he was setting out on. “Don’t let mother worry too much, I’ll be home before you know it and keep yourself out of trouble.”

“Me trouble,” Carter replied indignantly. “Don’t know the meaning of the word.”

Thomas had snorted before they both became serious, staring at each other and then to the expanse beyond, land rolling on and on to the horizon, the great unknown beyond their small world.

“I love you,” Thomas had told him, pulling him into a tight embrace, voice cracking a little. “Take care little brother.”

Carter hadn’t been able to reply straight away, a lump in his throat, they’d not been ones to show much affection. They’d never had to, they were best friends, the worst kind of enemies when their tempers got the better of them; thick of thieves when they felt mischievous and kindred spirits who’d find it difficult to be apart.

“Big baby,” he said with a prickle of pride as he dug Thomas in the stomach, seeing the glint in his eyes and blinking away his own tears.

“Not crying, just laughing on the wrong side of my face,” Thomas had replied soberly, cupping Carter’s face with his hands and wiping the tears away with his thumbs.

Letting go, Thomas had bent down and picked a head of lavender, twirling it between his fingers before giving Carter a wide smile.

“For luck,” he sighed before turning and setting off on his way. He didn’t look back, just kept on walking and Carter watched until he disappeared into the distance with a heavy heart before turning back to their home to follow his own path.

He was able to take over the business when his father became ill, a mysterious illness no physician could cure. When his father died they buried him in the small graveyard of the church, the small mound of earth bedecked with lavender his mother had gathered the evening before.

Thomas wrote over the years, a few letters which told of his life and experiences. He didn’t speak much of war, of the terrors he witnessed, of the men who died by his sword, only of the men he had met, his training, the strangeness of the lands overseas. Carter would read the letters out to his mother on evenings; it cheered them both to hear of Thomas’s life. 

‘Robin is trying to teach me some of the natives’ language and how to read their holy book. He thinks it is a way of understanding what it is we are fighting. Problem is nobody seems to understand his way of thinking, aside from Much, who as usual supports anything Robin has to say. I envy them in a way, that they have each other. I miss that, I miss you little brother, I think if you met these two men you would like them. Where Robin is brave and headstrong, Much is more careful and likes to think things through.’

“I think that Robin of Locksley has become a hero of sorts to his eyes,” their mother would say with a smile. It comforted her to know her son was in the midst of good men whom he held in high regard, gave her slight peace of mind to know he wasn’t alone in the native lands.

Carter wondered if he would ever meet the men who Thomas spoke so often of, he’d written so much about them it was as if Carter knew them himself. He wrote letters himself, had written of their fathers death, of the bad winter that had given way to a flourishing summer. Their family had never wanted for food or money, their father having been a sword-smith and being one of a large group who provided blades for the kings army. They had been granted lands, were paid well and would never be out of work. They did what they could for the families around them, his parents had known what it was like to go hungry, to struggle to survive and being so blessed themselves liked to provide as much as they could for people in need.

In every letter Carter returned, he put in a small sprig of lavender. By the time it reached Thomas he knew it would be dried and brittle, but it was the thought of a small piece of home making it’s way to his brother that he persisted in doing it. It was with a heavy heart that he wrote to Thomas of their mothers’ death, it had been sudden; she’d collapsed in the fields picking lavender for the summer solstice. Carter had seen her fall, but had been too late to aid her. It took a long time for him to write that letter and the ink had been smudged with tears only he and his brother would know had been shed.

It had only been a few weeks since he’d buried her by their fathers grave when he looked out over the fields of deep purple, lavender in full bloom and blowing it’s scent over the hills when the figures appeared in the distance. The sun was setting and he’d finished work for the day, sitting by the house and watching the sunset. It wasn’t until they grew closer that he realised they wore the kings guard uniform and for a moment his heart leapt, perhaps Thomas had returned home. Getting to his feet he walked out to meet them, fingers brushing delicately over lavender petals as he approached. Only as he drew nearer did he notice none of the men looked familiar.

His world ended that day, the sun set on his old life and gave birth to vengeance and anger. ‘Died in a raid he’d been ordered to carry out by Robin of Locksley’, they had told him. ‘Suicide’ one of the men had said bitterly before being hushed by another. Carter hadn’t missed the tone, the implication of the words. Thomas had died because of Robin of Locksley, the man who Thomas had spoken so highly of. A man Carter knew Thomas had trusted so implicitly.

After some weeks he left home to start his new life, one of anger, of steely determination to avenge his brothers’ death. This new path took him to the holy land, to witness horrors Thomas had never described, to murder men whose faces he wouldn’t forget. He learned to not look back, like Thomas, to not yearn for what had been before, to not mourn what was lost, to not be shamed by what he had become. He returned to England, to Nottingham, it wasn’t the money he cared for, it was making Robin pay for what he had done.

But then he’d met the man, in the short time of being around him he saw what Thomas had saw, something gnawed at his soul to remind him that he’d once imagined meeting this man and getting to know him as Thomas had. They were both just as he’d described them, Robin and Much, good men, kindred spirits. They reminded him of how he and Thomas had once been and knew that was one of the reasons Thomas had liked them so much.

There in a barn finally facing the man whom he’d focused all his anger and hurt upon, it had all dissolved into nothing and Robin had offered him a way back. The truth had hurt about Thomas but it was better than allowing a lie to ruin his own life as well, Carter knew that much. Robin asked him to stay, or at least think about it and that night Carter did. He’d been alone for sometime, since the death of his mother, since his brothers body had been brought home to him.

Carter had slept on the idea of staying, fighting by Robin’s side. He needed to make up for the stain he’d marked against Thomas’s good name and his own. Perhaps there in Sherwood he’d find what he’d been yearning for since he’d said farewell to Thomas all those years ago. As he sat he smelled something familiar on the air and gave a frown before looking to Much who’d just arrived back at the camp with ‘breakfast’. He set down the basket of provisions and a few sprigs of purple peeked out over the edge.

“Where did you get that?” Carter asked him, picking up one of the stems and breathing in the smell. He smiled at the familiarity, it reminded him of home.

“There’s a meadow nearby Locksley,” Much explained to him. “The lavender’s been growing thick and fast there this year. Unusual, not usually so much of it about.”

“Show me,” Carter asked him. He’d been gone from home so long he didn’t realise how much he often yearned for the familiarity of such a simple things as fields filled with purple.

Much had given him a quizzical look but agreed. It was early, the others were still asleep, and so they made their way towards Locksley. In the early light the meadow didn’t show half it’s full adornment, the flowers still not opened fully to the light of day. The lavender had spread over the years from small clumps to a vast spread but it intermingled with the rest of the wild flowers. It was both familiar and strange to Carter but he couldn’t help smiling.

“Not at it’s full glory yet,” Much tells him, a hint of pride in his voice. “At the height of summer, on perfect days, this place if filled with so many colours. Robin and I used to spend so many days in this field or in the forest, just-.”

He seemed at a loss to explain it but Carter gave a grin and a nod.

“Just living,” Carter finished for him. “It was the same for Thomas and I, where we grew up, the fields were filled with lavender.”

“You’re like him,” Much told him, though he’d already said it the day before in the barn. “He was a good man, I liked him. It was sad how it ended, I know Robin was saddened by it, I think he wishes he‘d done more to stop him.”

“He liked you, you and Robin,” Carter replied. “He was always strong willed, always liked to do things his way. I never wanted him to leave but he wasn’t good in one place. I’m glad he met both of you, I think it gave him some comfort knowing you. I never wanted to go to war, much preferred being in one place, I like to know my place in the world.”

“Where is that place now?” Much asked him.

“I don’t know,” Carter shrugged. “Home isn’t home anymore, there’s nothing there for me now.”

“Perhaps there’s something for you here,” Much said solemnly. “You’ve thought about Robin’s offer?”

“Wasn’t sure if you’d want me to stay after the last few days,” Carter replied.

“Maybe I want to get to know you better,” Much said with a sigh before turning to go back into the forest. Before moving further he paused and plucked a head of lavender from it’s stem and turned back to Carter, holding it out to him. “For luck.”

Carter took it off him with a look of surprise, watching him head towards the tree line. He looked down at the lavender in his fingers before looking up at Much’s retreating form. Watching Much walk away he thought on staying with Robin and Much and the gang and wondered what sort of life he could have here. Much paused again and turned back to him.

“Well? Are you coming or not?” He shouted over to him and Carter gave a smile and nodded his head before striding to catch up with him. 

Much waited for him to catch up and together they strode back towards camp.

~fin~


End file.
